Intellectual Discourse, 1994 Vol 2, No 2, 145-166 The Failure of Muslim Reformation: "Jadidism" in EasternEurope, 1699-1922 Ataullah Bogdan Kopanski* Abstract: Theadvent of Westerninfluence has led to a numberof responsesin the Muslims,one of thembeing an attemptto "reform" Islam-Jadidism. This study examinesthe influenceof such movementsfrom the early eighteenth century to the first quarter of the twentieth century, in easternEuropean countries,particularly relatingto Polish,Crimean, Turkish and TatarMuslims . It is shownthat all suchattempts resulted in cultural decay,and lossof identiry andpower. Modernist Muslim intelligentsiahave long been fascinatedand bewil- dered by the industrial, scientific, and military successof the European civilization. Some of them have acceptedliberalism, others libertinism and the hedonisticphilosophy of carpe diem. Most of them believe in cleansingIslam of of what they called "traditionalismand conservative customs," so that the Muslims can become a part of of the modern world. Yet the contemporaryphenomenon of revivalismin the Muslim world on one hand, and the growing power of antiliberal and anti- capitalist new National Socialistmovements (Neo-Nazism) in the post- modernist West on the other, is a total rejection of the outdated ideologiesof nineteenthcentury Muslim reformism andantiquated leftist third-worldism of the 1960s. Today, we are headingtoward a global clash of living civilizations, which will dwarf the nineteenthcentury "EasternQuestion" in Europe. This study is deliberately Eurocentric, becausethe achievementsof eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe have de facto exceeded anything createdby the other non-Europeancultures during this period. *Ataullah BogdanKopanski is AssociateProfessor, Department of History and Civilization, International Islamic University Malaysia. ,'JADIDISM,' t|461 IN EASTERNEUROPE The study aims to exhibit the whole range of Muslim modernist experiences,which endedin the Great Failure of the Muslim Reform- ation and ignited the current "Muslim Rage" expressedin the cyclic Counter-Reformation The Dream and Defeat From the PeaceTreaty of Karlowitz signedin 1699,the Habsburgsof Atstria becamea major power in CentralEurope. The Osmanli elite's Lale-devri or "Tulipmania" indicatedan advancedcultural decadenceand a symptom of ghaflah (inner weakness,loss of consciousness).The Serbs, Greeks, and Orthodox Bulgariansrose up in the Balkans, animatedby the Spanishand Austro-Hungarianinvasions of the Islamic realm in Europe. The Russians launched an ethnic and religious cleansingin the northeasternCrimean Khanate. In Lll7, the Austrians attackedand won the first "holy war" againstthe Turks. The anti-Islamic crusader, Prince Eugenede Savoy (1663-1736),became the supreme commander of the irnperial army and flag-bearer of the Habsburgs' supremacy. He defeatedthe Turkish Muslim armies and conquered Belgrade.The Sublime Porte in Istanbulwas forced to sign another "peacetreaty" in Passarowitz(1718). The former "Great Turk" was renamedthe "Sick Man of Europe." Gradually, the Habsburg Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungarypushed the OsmanliTurks out of Danube and the Balkans. In the eighteenthand nineteenthcentury, the weakened"Sick Man" from Istanbulwas still strongenough to confusethe political plansof the Holy Alliance of the Christianpower brokers.The SublimePorte never acceptedthe partition of Poland,but the Turks were forced to acceptthe Russianannexation of the Crimean Khanatein 1774. Osmanli Turkey openedits borders and gaveasylum to any Polish anti-Russianinsurgent who sought it. The "Great Emigration" was the Polish responseto the failure of the anti-RussianNovember Uprising in 1831. Most of the intellectualand politicalelite of Polandfled abroad,some 10,000in all, among them Muslim guerrillas from Lithuania and newly-converted Polish Muslim insurgents.About 50 famous Polish officers accepted Islamand joined the Osmanliarmy.r The greatestPolish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, died in Istanbul, where thousandsof Polish freedom-fightersdreamt about " Legion of Freedom." "Abd al-Qadir, the Muslim hero of the anti-Frenchjihad in Algeria, inspired the Polish Christianpoet, Cyprian Camil Norwid. Norman Davies correctly describedthe historical connectionsand destiny of Iurelr-scruetDrscouRsp Ir47l Turks and Poles: WheneverPoland was hard pressedby the Habsburgs,or by the MuscoviteRussians, the Poleswould ferventlypray for a Turkish campaignin theBalkans or on theBlack Sea coast. From theBattle of Mohdcsin 1526ro rheTreary of Adrianopolein 1829,the Ottomans providedthe only regular counterbalance to Poland's more immediate easternneighbors, and increasinglythe only hope of relief. By the eighteencentury, during the RussianProtectorate in Poland,the Turkish mechanismhad assumeda fixed pattern.So long as the Russianarmies were engagedon the Turkishfront, they couldnot descendin forceon Poland.Russo-Turkish Wars provided the only intervalswhen the Polish reformerscould act. War cloudsover Constantinoplespelt fair weatherfor reformin Warsaw.2 In 1836, elevenPolish officers of the Russianarmy defectedto Imam Ali Shamyl's mujahidin, who wagedgazavat andjihad against Russians.3 The Polish and Lithuanian Muslims were deeply involved in the revolutionaryevents which shapedthe new order in Old Europe. In April 1844,the Polish Tatar andmuhajir, AhmedTevfik Bey (formerly Teofil Pulaski) left Istanbul in a secret mission to Russian-occupiedCrimea, rvhere he tried unsuccessfullyto organize the anti-Russian Muslim movementamongst the local CrimeanTatars. He hadgood relationswith the Crimean Khan Mirza Agay and the governorof Turkish Dobrudja, HasanBey. In Constanca,Romania, Ahmed Tevfik-Pulaski organizeda small unit of Muslim Tatar mujdhidin from Tulcha, Babadek and Hirshova, but the anti-lslamic conspiracyof Paris-based"Power" and "Agency" (fanaticalCatholic and Freemasonicgroups of Polish immi- grants financed and organizedby Prince Adam Czartoryski and Baron Zamoyski) rejected the plan of the Polish Muslims and ignored their patriotic zeal. After the fall of the Polish-Lithuanianstate in 1795, the Russian CzarinaCatherine II "guaranteed"full religiousfreedom to the Muslims of former Poland and Lithuania. Shewas the sameczarina who master- minded the annexationof the Muslim Crimea, and guaranteedsimilar "freedom" for the Crimean Tatars. They all neededthe famous Tatar Muslim cavalry. In Prussia,King FrederickII the Greatformed the Muslim regiment of Bosnianand Turkish mercenaries.A PolishMuslim soldier of fortune, Ali Mustafa Korycki, organized the Tatar squadronsin the Prussian army. In 1795, FrederickWilliam II nominateda former Polish colonel, Mirza Tuhan-Baranowski,as the chief commanderof the Tatar resiments ''JADIDISM'' [148] IN EASTERNETTROPP in Prussia. After the invasion of Prussiaand Russia by the victorious armies of NapoleonBonaparte, another Polish Muslim colonel, Mustafa Achmatowicz,received permission to recruit the LithuanianMuslims for French troops. The Polish lv{uslim cavalry in Napoleon's army fought the Russiansand Austrians in many battles. On March 5, 1814, the Russiantroops of Prince Gagarin were defeatedby the Muslim sabresin the battle of BoyranBac.a After Bonaparte'sdefeat, the Polish Muslim squadronsreturned to Russian-occupiedPoland. Many Muslim Lithuanians and Poles were involved in the anti-RussianNovember Uprising of 1831and the January Uprising of 1863. The victorious Russiansdeported them to Siberia. After general amnesty in 1878, Muslim survivors of katorga (hard labour), including Ali Buczacki, Amurat Achmatowicz, Adam Tuhan- Baranowski, and Mustafa Kryczynski, returned to their homes in the Tatar towns and villages of Lithuania. Numerous Muslim veterans of anti-Russianresistance emigrated to Turkey. Economicprosperity of the Muslim Tatars in Lithuania and growing political chaos in Turkey stopped this hijrah at the end of the 19thcentury. After the partition of the misruled Polish kingdom, the Muslims of Poland and Lithuania became Russiansubjects. Muslims of Podolia, Llkraine, mostly Lipka Tatars and Cheremisesemigrated to Bessarabia and Moldavia. Only ruined or abandonedmosques stand as witnessesto the Islamic past of southern Ukraine. In 1763, a Turkish envoy to Prussia, Resmi Efendi, travelled acrossPoland, Lithuania and Podolia, where he visited the formerly Turkish-controlledfortress of Kamieniets Podolski (held by the Muslim forces between t672-1699). He was emotionally movedby the sight of a ruined minaret with an Islamic date of constructionand a Qur'anic quotationand prayed for the "return of these placesto Islam, so that the word of Truth may resoundfrom this minaret."5 Collaboration and Resistance In 1790, Mansur Bey led Circassian(North Caucasian)Muslims in jihad againstRussians and GrebenskyeCossacks. A former Jesuitmissionary from Genoa, Italy, Mansur Bey had embracedlslam in Daghestan.He died in the Russianprison at SolovetzkyeIsland in the White Sea. The jihad startedin northernCaucasia in the late eighteenthcentury continued tlll 1925.It was directedby the powerful Murids of the Naqshbandi and Qadiri tarlqahs. In 1785, Imam Mansur Ushurma from Chechnya annihilateda Russianarmy-the worst defeatever inflicted on the troops lNtpLLpctuar-DrscouRsp tL4el of Catherine II. The heroic shaykh was captured by the Russiansin Anapa in 1791 and he died in Schlusselburgprison three years later. Shaykh Muhammad Efendi of Yaraglar in Daghestanwas the second Naqshbandimurshid or leader, who wagedjihad againstthe Russians. He was the teacherof Ghazi Muhammadand